FEAR OR FORGIVENESS: The Church in Syria Responds
Christians in Syria were in mourning after a suicide bombing struck a Greek Orthodox church in Damascus during a June 22 Divine Liturgy. At least 20 were killed and more than 60 injured after an attacker, reported to be armed and wearing an explosive vest, entered Mar Elias, a Greek Orthodox church in the city’s Dweila neighbourhood. But for believers in Syria, and all of the Middle East, persecution is neither a new theology nor an unfamiliar territory. There has always been a deep-rooted understanding that to follow Christ is to share in His suffering. Unlike the responses often seen in the West, this has never diminished their witness—it has only refined it.